Otello Director Paul Curran #3

So why write these fan letters to teachers? Because I’m hoping it’s not a eulogy. I’m hoping that our government and "those responsible" (an odious phrase designed to always put the blame elsewhere) will pick up the standards and give our kids the chances and opportunities the need and deserve. It can’t be easy but if it worked once why can’t it work again? What changed? What needs to come back? I don’t pretend to have all (or any of) the answers.

Scottish schools back then were a little old fashioned, I guess. Nothing wrong with that. They taught all of the above plus one great and invaluable lesson – discipline. A self disipline that comes back to the Jean Brodie philosophy – get the best out of yourself. And before anybody starts with the "F" word, yes, Miss Brodie had some very unfortunate and nasty politics – she was a Fascist. I am not. Very far from it, in fact. I teach a lot in universities and colleges around the world these days. The standards of learning often scare me but the standards of discipline near terrify me. Little incentive to do anything for themselves – and a constant neurosis from authorities that the "boxes" aren’t being ticked. Maddening.

Music in Easterhouse was an embarrassment – something toffs did. Helen Kerr, John Walker, Jim McCafferty and others insisted it was not and let me choose my own path without prejudice. My luxurious world of music, in which I hid at every chance from the nastiness of where I was living, has now been a part of my life for a very long time.

It’s a privilege to pick up the score of Otello today and know I will hear the chorus of the Welsh National Opera almost bring me to tears in act 3… almost because I know my job will be to make sure they DO bring me to tears….